K’Sante is LoL’s greatest failure & patch 14.19 proves it
League of LegendsK’Sante has been a problem from the moment he was released, with casual players bouncing off of him at launch only for him to define pro play in the years since. And, no matter what Riot does to try and salvage his kit, the dev team’s effort never bears fruit.
In terms of his visuals, story, and (in some ways) gameplay, K’Sante is a success. The trailer revealing him was arguably one of the best in League’s history, with players immediately gravitating toward the storytelling behind him breaking his shield-like weapons and turning them into blades. This would eventually turn into K’Sante’s half-tank/half-backline assassin identity.
League of LegendsWhile the idea of a high-skill ceiling tank that can risk it all to dive the backline is cool in concept, the execution has led to so many issues that Riot has had to make adjustments. A lot of them.
If you add up every balance change K’Sante has had since release including patch 14.19’s changes, he’s received 142 adjustments since launch across two different reworks, and that doesn’t include dozens of big fixes.
Riot has done everything it can to keep K’Sante’s core identity alive but at the cost of significant dev time. We should all start considering that this champion may have been flawed from his kit’s conception.
K’Sante might as well be a different champion in pro play
For the average LoL player, K’Sante isn’t a huge issue. In fact, if we’re looking at things from a statistics standpoint, the only problem with K’Sante is having him on your team.
In every single MMR bracket, K’Sante has never had an average win rate above 50% outside of Diamond+ MMR. Ever. Currently, he’s sitting at about a 46% win rate globally, one of the worst top laners in the game. This champion is incredibly underpowered for most players, and he’s never been good—unless you look at the highest level of play.
Showmaker’s now-infamous K’Sante rant holds true to this day, even if many of the needlessly complex mechanics he complained about then have since been replaced with new, even more needlessly complex mechanics now.
In the hands of the right player on the right team, K’Sante can single-handedly put the game on his back. For instance, in 2023, big-name pros at the time like C9 Fudge (13-2 w/l) and JDG 369 (21-5 w/l) had extremely high win rates with this champion over that competitive year. And, yes, while it’s easier to rack up a strong win rate when you’re on a good team, the champion’s agency when played at his peak is enough to handily carry matches.
The same is true in 2024, with players like G2 BrokenBlade (16-3 w/l), T1 Zeus (21-9 w/l), and Gen.G Kiin (28-5 w/l) having both high pick/ban prio and high win rates on K’Sante across their 2024 career showings on him. This is despite him having received a “rework” in 2023 that was supposed to fix this problem. But, let’s be honest, he’s still the same champion now, and he’ll still be the same after 14.19’s changes.
What actually causes this rift between pros and casual players? Why are only the best pros in the world able to make K’Sante work consistently?
14.19’s changes are a remix, not a rework
If you were to put K’Sante in the hands of an average League player who tried him on release, and they were to compare him to how he’ll be after the 14.19 rework, it’s likely they wouldn’t know much changed. Other than his Q being a little thinner and him not being able to dash over walls with E during All Out, he’s functionally the same at a basic level.
In all fairness, there are many other things that have changed over the years. For example, he’s no longer able to flash while channeling his W or to cancel the animation on his Q, the sort of mechanics pros were taking advantage of to build a lead. These mechanics are beyond the reach of an average player, so their removal had minimal impact on most of the player base.
Simply put, what high-level players are able to do mechanically on K’Sante is so drastically different from what the average player can do that there’s no way to bridge the gap. Without a significant shift in the way his abilities function, that fact won’t change.
Between these two “reworks”, K’Sante kit is functionally the same. It’s the numbers under the hood that are being swapped around.
To prove a point, here’s the full change list for K’Sante on patch 14.19. Strap in and take note of how much K’Sante’s kit is mechanically changing as a result of this rework:
Base Stats
- Attack range reduced: 175 >>> 150
- Base attack speed increased: 0.625 >>> 0.658
- Attack speed ratio increased: 0.625 >>> 0.658
Passive: Dauntless Instinct
- No longer gives bonus range
- Base damage increased from 5-20 >>> 20
Q: Ntofo Strikes
- Base damage increased: 30/55/80/105/130 >>> 70/100/130/160/190
- AD scaling removed
- Resistance scaling increased: 30% >>> 35%
- Width reduced: 150 >>> 100
- Cast time now scales down with resistances rather than health
- All Out no longer reduces cast time on Ntofo Strikes
- All Out‘s Ntofo Strikes cooldown reduction increased: 25% >>> 33%
- All Out now keeps the slow from K’Sante’s Ntofo Strikes rather than removing it
- Cooldown increased early: 3.5-1.75 >>> 4-1.75
- Cooldown cap from bonus resistances reduced: 250 >>> 120
- For context, the above cooldown changes essentially mean that the CD will be longer early on, but the ability scales to its max static cooldown of 1.75 at 120 total bonus resistances instead of 250. So he’s a bit worse early, but gets a lower cooldown CD faster.
W: Path Maker
- Base damage increased: 20/40/60/80/100 >>> 40/60/80/100/120
- AD and bonus resistance scaling removed
- % max HP damage adjusted: 6/7/8/9/10% >>> 8%
- % max HP damage now scales with resistances: 2% per 100 bonus resistances
- Stun duration adjusted: 1.25 >>> 0.5-1.5 seconds scaling with channel time
- Minimum charge time decreased: 0.66 >>> 0.4
- All Out version now deals 10-100% bonus true damage based on charge time
- All Out damage reduction increased: 60% >>> 75%
E: Footwork
- Cooldown reduced: 10.5/10/9.5/9/8.5 >>> 10/9.5/9/8.5/8
- All Out now reduces Footwork’s cooldown by 50%
- Dash speed reduced: 900 >>> 550
- All Out dash speed reduced: 1450 >>> 950
- Ally dash speed no longer scales with movement speed
- All Out ally dash speed increased: 1100 >>> 1400
- All Out no longer increases dash range
- All Out no longer allows K’Sante to dash over terrain unless he’s dashing to an ally
R: All Out
- Damage changed from magical to physical
- AP ratios removed
- Base damage on initial hit adjusted: 70/110/150 >>> 80/115/150
- Wall damage now scales with 5% bonus HP
- Duration reduced: 20 >>> 15
- Can no longer be cancelled by recasting
- No longer grants AD
- No longer converts passive damage to true damage or increases passive damage
- Now grants 1% (+1% per 100 bonus resistances) max health damage to all abilities and attacks
- Now grants 50% bonus armor pen (only applies to bonus armor, not base)
- Attack speed bonus increased: 25/35/45% >>> 40/60/80%
- Omnivamp reduced: 25% >>> 20%
With that massive list of changes in mind, what actually changed about K’Sante from a mechanical standpoint?
- Shortened attack range
- His Q is a little thinner and slows during All Out, which is a revert from the prior “rework”, also his Q’s cast time isn’t decreased by All Out
- His E’s dash is a little slower and can’t go over walls in All Out
- Now the stun on W scales with time channeled, but this being a mechanical “change” is a stretch considering it stunned before
- All Out can no longer be cancelled
That’s it. That whole big list of changes, one of the biggest sets of balance changes ever put to print for a single champion at once, left his gameplay relatively untouched. What’s there is just small shifts, and he’ll more than likely still suck for the average player as he continues to dominate at a pro level.
What’s more, it was much the same case with K’Sante’s last rework: A ton of changes with very little actual change. Covering LoL and talking to pro players is a huge part of my job, and his 14.19 changelog is a lot to take in, even for me. Imagine someone who plays a couple of matches a week trying to parse this patch.
At some point, it’s worth considering that K’Sante’s kit may need to be tossed entirely.
Scorched earth
Reworks in League of Legends come in all shapes and sizes. While there are a few that line up with K’Sante’s “reworks” that haven’t changed much about him mechanically, most actual reworks fall in one of two camps.
There are full reworks, ones that swap out almost every aspect of a champion’s kit in a way that only somewhat resembles what they were before (e.g. Fiddlesticks and Skarner), or there are mid-scope updates that change an ability or two but keep their kit mostly intact and functionally similar (e.g. Jax).
However, in the case of most complete overhauls that rework a character’s entire kit, they come with a visual update to fit their new kit. Considering how new K’Sante is, rewriting his visual identity would be a waste. But, there is one major success story of a character whose visuals remained mostly unchanged while completely overhauling their gameplay: Aatrox.
Riot GamesSure, he got some mild updates and changes visually, but his overall visual identity and gameplay fantasy remained mostly the same. He was initially designed as an unkillable drain tank, and he remained an unkillable drain tank—but in a way that was healthier for the game.
Riot essentially tossed his old abilities out aside from having an install on his ult and exchanged them for a completely different kit. And, though this choice was controversial back in 2018 when Riot implemented his rework, their decision to essentially delete Aatrox’s old abilities was the right one.
He went from a relatively niche and unhealthy champion with a snowbally, auto-attack-oriented kit to an incredibly popular, ability-focused top laner, one pros and casual players alike enjoy. Hell, Worlds 2022 MVP Kingen chose Aatrox for his commemorative skin as the champion that defined his historic run most.
Riot ignored players begging them not to erase his old kit, and it was the right decision. If Aatrox’s current form wasn’t in the game, we may not have had those same competitive highs nor the same joy current Aatrox mains have for his kit. There’s precedent for completely tossing an unhealthy kit being the right decision.
Part of me hopes I’m wrong, that loading K’Sante’s W with buffs and cutting down on his mobility will get the champion in a good spot for casuals while nerfing him in pro play. League of Legends gets constant updates with exciting new champions and items all the time, the team behind this game clearly knows what they’re doing. Maybe I should just trust that things will work out, but… I just don’t see this rework moving the needle.
So little has changed about K’Sante’s kit on 14.19 even if the actual changelog is a novel. The devs have devoted so much time and effort into a kit that pros and average players alike just don’t enjoy playing against.
At some point, you’ve got to throw in the towel, take the scorched earth approach, and just pretend his kit never happened despite all the time and effort that’s gone into creating it. That’s a very, very difficult decision to make, but it’s the right one.
In K’Sante’s lore, he had to recognize that his pride was his greatest enemy, with that hubris consuming him and almost costing him everything. Only by tossing aside that pride was he able to succeed. It’d behoove the dev team to take notes from K’Sante’s story.
With the amount of effort that’s gone into salvaging his kit, we could have just had a new K’Sante at this point.
The sooner that LoL’s devs face the reality that this champion is beyond fixing, the better. And, while his old kit would be lauded as a failure for years after it got wiped from existence, League of Legends would be a better game without it.